10-30 this morning I had just put the tiller on and it started to rain, about to disappear back inside for a bit and a boat came into the lock cut, so we joined them going down, we had only planned to go as far as Welford Lock, but it would be two locks shared. You can see from this photo what the weather was like, but it soon cleared up for a bit.
A little further on was a human powered boat I wonder what the propulsion system is, it looks rather expensive with that alloy frame. If it were mine I don’t think I would just leave it floating in the river.
I thought this poor old Cormorant looked a bit moth eaten, still he must be able to fly OK to to the top of the tree drying out.The river is quite narrow in places and with the clear water the rocky bottom is quite visible, so you don’t want to stray to far from the centre. I was surprised how well it shows up in this photograph, the light must have just been right for it.
Lots of the bridges are multi arched but unlike the ones above Stratford with and up stream and a down stream navigation arch these just have one and in most cases you would have no chance getting through the others. Boats traveling downstream have right of way but you can see quite well.
When we arrived at Welford lock there were already two boats moored there and a cruiser had just left the lock so the gates were open, we moored ahead of the two moored boats and the boat we were traveling with went into the lock alone, buy the time we had moored up the hire boat decided to unmoor and join them, so we helped them both lock down. Below the lock waiting to come up was Martin in his beautiful little tug Cutter, so we helped him up before having lunch.
After lunch looking at the map, and the opportunity to go for an Indian meal with Andrew and Wendy in Evesham we decided to move on a bit. As we set off we had a swan pop along to say hello, of course by now the lock was against us as a small cruiser had gone down when Martin came up. I had not looked closely and the water level boards below the lock before so I don’t know if they are all like this, its had a second one mounted on top of an old one, but the new one is about 6-7” higher, so the water level on the new one is well into the green, but on the old one was edging towards the orange/yellow. Maybe the weirs are more clogged and the levels run higher for the same flow.
We carried on down to Bidford where there are moorings along the park but unfortunately they were all taken so we winded and retraced our path up stream, a lot slower than coming down and winded in the weir stream below Barton Lock, I then reversed up the lock stream and in to the lock, we locked up backwards and then reversed to the 48 hour moorings above the lock for the night.
Today’s Journey
9¾ miles, 6 locks ( one of them twice) in 4 hours
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